A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c13.43

c13.43

One of the latest Perumāḷs of the period was the celebrated Cheramān Perumāḷ, end of the eighth and early ninth century, whose history is much overlaid by legend. We may doubt the authenticity of the story of his conversion to Islām and his pilgrimage to Mecca. He must have been a devoutly religious man as the Jains, Christians, and Śaivites, besides Muslims, claim him as one of their fold. His relation to Sundaramūrti, according to Śaiva legend, will be noticed later. He may have renounced the world, and effected a partition of his realm among his relatives or vassals before doing so. He seems to have vanished somehow about A.D. 825, the epoch of the Kollam era. But whether that era commemorates Cheramān’s partition of Kerala or Śankarāchārya’s imposition of his religious prescriptions on that country, or the establishment of the Jewish merchant community in Kollam (Quilon)—other possibilities have also been suggested—cannot be determined yet. There are epigraphical references which connect the era both with the appearance and the destruction of Kollam.